Australian Airman, born and buried in Birmingham

Our research of World War One Soldiers at Lodge Hill Cemetery has uncovered many stories from across the world. Harry Taylor was born in Birmingham, but traveled to Australia when he was young.  He served throughout World War One and died in England just before the war ended.

Commonwealth Heads pay tribute to the Unremembered

Our Unremembered wreath has been presented to the Foreign Secretary and Commonwealth Foreign Ministers at a lunchtime reception as part of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting along with nearly 100 others made by community groups across the UK.

Foreign Secretary with members of the Big Ideas team
Photo courtesy of CHOGM 2018.

The many delegates and diplomats included the International Minister for the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the Minister of National Security for Bermuda and the High Commissioner of Barbados.

My time with PHC

Since September, I’ve been working with People’s Heritage Co-op for my placement on the Professional Skills module on my history course at the University of Birmingham. Now that my placement is over, it has made me reflect on everything I have done over the past seven months, and the progress that I’ve made in that time. When I chose this placement, I did so as it seemed like an opportunity to do something unlike any previous work experience I had taken, but I did not realise just how varied my work would be or how rewarding I would find it.

Who do you think you were in the Great War?

My Grandfather, to the left of my Great-grandfather,
Heinrich Hoenen (with his Iron Cross tucked into his jacket)

What was your family doing during the Great War?  It's a question we ask as part of our learning resources to explore the impact of the Great War in Birmingham.

A career in Heritage

Making the connections - relating Archives
to school life at Paganel Primary School

So many people ask me; what can you do with a history degree? You must want to teach history, right?

There is an assumption that the only careers that are history related are a curator, librarian or a history teacher. The very existence of the heritage sector is almost unheard of, something which I was certainly guilty of before beginning my placement at the People’s Heritage Co-operative. The placement has not only highlighted to me a number of possible careers in heritage but also the importance and under appreciation of the heritage organisations and the sector as a whole.

In Soldiers Footsteps: Commemorating WW1 and the Somme

Often individual stories, especially in regards to the First World War, are lost when commemorating a big and significant part of history. The workshop I created for the Year 5 children at Paganel school was aimed at highlighting the individuals involved worldwide in the war and extracting their individual stories, not only of their experiences of war but their families, who were left behind.

Uncovering Birmingham WW1 history with Paganel School

Looking at World War 1 Memorials at Lodge Hill Cemetery

Dr Nicola Gauld writes:

Paganel Primary School is unique in that it has its own archive and its Year 6 pupils are well versed in research, collecting evidence and making connections between events in history. The warfare project which took place in June made great use of these skills. The school is situated close to Lodge Hill Cemetery which has its own First World War memorial where victims of the war who died at the Southern Cross Hospital (located at the University of Birmingham’s campus at Edgbaston) are buried.

This formed the focus of this week-long project. The week began with pupils looking at archive material to establish what the pupils already knew about the First World War (quite a lot), what they knew about Birmingham’s experience during the war (a bit less) and what they would like to find out by the end of the week (what the experience of children was like, what food and clothing was like at the time, what weapons were used).

The following day the class worked in two groups, both visited Lodge Hill with question sheets relating to the men and women buried there while the second group carried out research using the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site. While some of the dead had been Birmingham residents before they joined the war or had joined the Royal Warwickshire regiment, we discovered that many had come from much further afield, from Australia and Canada for example, but also that there was a Maori soldier buried there. This helped the pupils appreciate the war in its global context, as well as the different regiments and the different jobs that could be done as part of the war effort.

Creating a storyline from photos

On the final day we used the archive material and research we had gathered to create stories, thinking about what life was like back then for the soldiers stuck in the trenches, children living in Birmingham, nurses and women munitions workers. It was clear that the children had absorbed and taken on the stories that they had learned about earlier in the week and were able to deal with the subject in a sensitive and mature manner. The stories each group devised were then presented to the rest of the class, teachers and head teacher. Overall, it was a really positive project, dealing with difficult and challenging subject matter, and the response of each pupil was impressive. Lots of questions were raised and there is certainly the potential to extend this into a larger scale project which could make a valuable contribution to the commemoration of the war’s centenary.

Using a green screen to project children into archive photographs